Brilliant sticker design ideas to make your message stick

Whether you want them for your product packaging or a trade show booth, your customers’ laptops or just anywhere people feel like slapping them, great looking branded stickers are an awesomely versatile way to get brand exposure and—you guessed it—make your message stick. To create a sticker that really works for you and your brand, a custom look is your best bet. Give your creativity a boost with these fun and inspirational sticker design ideas, and then get to work designing your own.

Make your sticker design pop with color
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For stickers, you’re looking to grab attention with a relatively small image. Use energetic designs filled with vibrant colors for this aim. On-theme colors can also emphasize your brand’s hues, or reinforce the message you’re sending—such as when you use bright colors to denote summer and happiness or bold, contrasting colors that scream look at me!

Use a bright, colorful sticker to grab attention and send a similar feeling message.

All eyes on the message

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If your sticker has a strong message, you can draw all eyes on it by making your font the focal point. Big, bold letters will help you get your message out into the world. A unique typography can express the character and brand identity of your business and create the right feeling for your sticker design. A catchy slogan, funny quip or word play will make your message even more memorable.

Spooky stickers
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When it comes to branding, standing out is the name of the game—and a shocking design is perfect for that goal. If you’ve got something creepy, dark, or edgy you’re showing off, go there with color and thematic elements. For example, black lettering and blood effects may not be right for all stickers, but they’re perfect for a video game app with edgy characters.

Don’t shy away from using a spooky look for a similarly situated brand.

Get serious
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If your sticker is a more serious branding effort and you want to convey an important event, security, or a serious issue, make sure your colors, font, and styling reflects those needs. For example, many banks use navy blue to communicate being secure and trustworthy, and you’d never see a financial institution choose a goofy font like comic sans.

Some stickers do important jobs, like providing a service number or warning users about security; if yours does, get serious with your design.

Go retro
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For a really cool retro brand, a well-designed, vintage looking sticker is the perfect idea. Go for rustic colors, line drawings, and other illustrations to make your sticker design fit perfectly, whether you’re sticking it on food, drinks, packaging or something totally different.

Get a classic look
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Sometimes, playing by the rules is just what you need to do. When you’re hoping to publicize something that’s basic, appealing to a wide range of people, or you just need to be sure everyone knows what the brand or product is about with a single glance, go for classic visual cues like familiar colors, images, and styles that lend plenty of context. Use symbols that are easy to understand; a birthday cake for “happy birthday,” and a bagel with a coffee for a bagel shop. Or, just say what you need to say: you’re a “proud supporter” of an important cause.

Funny characters
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Listen, we all love cartoons, even if we don’t watch them as much as we used to (or admit it if we do). Stickers with funny characters on them are just appealing, and fun to see. They are also eye-catching, and you can’t help but focus enough on them to at least figure out what they’re up to—and that’s enough time to get a brand message across.

If you can afford to play around a little with your brand and message, funny characters are your friends.

Minimalistic stickers
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Flat design is still a major style trend, and a relatively simple, flat design in two or three colors can offer a sophisticated effect in a sticker. Sometimes a minimalistic sticker can be even more eye-catching than a complex design. It’s all in the lettering, spacing, and graphics—use those basic elements to create anything from the light-hearted traveler’s sticker to the top secret geek insignia.

Use simple graphics to focus on the brand and message, not the bells and whistles on the sticker itself.

Be cool
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Stickers are a great medium for single shot of cool—a concentrated image that just makes you want to join that club and fly those colors proudly. Achieve this cool look with a colorful, appealing image or logo that shows off an ideal. For example, the Lady Killerz sticker shows the ideal tough chick we all secretly pretend we are while watching an action movie (or maybe just a beer commercial). And this basking bear has achieved the perfect WiFi connection—while sunbathing in an inner tube. Awesome!

Is your product or brand all about users feeling hip or cool? Prove it with a cool sticker design.

Stickers do it all
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Stickers are a fantastic way to splash your brand and motto around. With the right design ideas, you can create stickers that say everything you need them to say in a single compact image that can go just about anywhere.

Want to make your brand message stick?

Say it with a custom sticker.

The author

Karla Lant is a freelance writer, author, journalist and editor, and an adjunct professor. She focuses on science, technology, and technical writing. She likes to build robots and bake bread in her spare time.

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Catalina

Mar 5 2018

Model cars usually use waterslide decals. They are fragile, but a lot more forgiving when you apply them because you can slide them around until perfectly positioned. I was reading somewhere that you can use a similar method with lego stickers using windex. You apply the windex to the surface, then add the sticker. This leaves you a few seconds to position the sticker just right. And use a hobby knife instead of your fingernails when peeing off the stickers from the backing sheet. The thin blade slides under the sticker easily without creating any wrinkles or fingerprints. And you can hold the sticker over the surface until you are happy with the position.